Construction is slated to begin next year on a new city community center located just south of the North Wake Landfill Park.

The community center is just one portion of a joint venture by Raleigh, Wake Schools and Wake County that also will bring a new elementary school and athletic fields to the site off Durant Road. A county Emergency Medical Services facility already is located there.

The school board was expected to vote Tuesday on a schematic design for the school, Abbotts Creek Elementary.

Construction funding for the school was included in the bond issue approved by voters in October. The school is scheduled to open in 2015.

Under a deal with the county, the school system will lease the land for Abbotts Creek for $10 a year rather than buying it outright, for a savings of $675,000.

Betty Parker, the real estate services director, said that by planning for the facilities jointly, all of the participants in the project benefit.

For example, rather than both the city and school system paying to grade the site and run utility lines to it, they can share those costs.

“It saves money for both parties,” she said.

Abbotts Creek originally was slated to open as a modular campus until the permanent site could be built, but few parents chose to enroll their children and the opening was delayed.

Community center, athletic fields

The design for the community center is nearly complete, and city officials expect to have a bid for the work in January, with construction to follow in mid-spring, said Cassie Schumacher-Georgopoulos, a city planner.

The plan for the center calls for 30,000 square-foot space with a gymnasium, elevated indoor track, fitness room, classrooms and more.

The city also will build two multipurpose fields that will be used by the North Raleigh Athletic Association. Wake Schools will construct its own athletic field for use by Abbotts Creek students.

An additional phase of the master plan for the site also calls for three baseball or softball fields and a skate park, but that portion of the plan is unfunded.